Moqueca Offers Flavors of Brazil in a Tropical Fish Stew

I visited Brazil late last year expecting to sample moqueca (moe-KAY-cuh), a tropical fish stew, on its home turf and to bring back a recipe.

I ordered it in several restaurants and surveyed the ingredients in the huge city market in Salvador, the capital of the Brazilian state Bahia, where fish and vegetables were piled high amid stalls of mangoes, sausages and candles used for religious practices, both Catholic and African.

A few of the elements of the dish may be unfamiliar to Americans, but they convey the essence of Brazilian cuisine. The dendê oil, or red palm oil, used as an enrichment and flavoring, brings the moqueca to life. It was once all but impossible to find outside the country; now you can order it online. The farofa, an accompaniment, is ubiquitous in Brazil and adds body to the stew. Both are worth the effort to include.

The dendê oil is a deep ruddy orange, and contributes a nutty sweetness. It’s an African component. The trees and oil came to Brazil in the 17th and 18th centuries during the West African slave trade. Today, about 75 percent of Salvador’s population is Afro-Brazilian.

One of the best renditions I tried came from Casa de Tereza, a well-known restaurant in Salvador. Tereza Paim, the owner, is a French-trained chef. Her advice? Good fish broth makes a difference. “The French have the best techniques,” she said. “The gelatin in the fish bones is important.”

Moqueca is served over rice with hot sauce and fresh chiles. And then there is the farofa. It’s made from manioc, or cassava meal, and sprinkled on the dish like a crumb topping. Whether the manioc is labeled meal or flour, you want it to be about the texture of cornmeal.

Felipe Amaral, a home cook in Rio de Janeiro, served us the best farofa of the trip, lightly toasted and generously woven through with onions fried in butter.

Ms. Paim insisted that you not get creative with moqueca. “It has to be traditional,” she said. “For us it’s like a prayer.”